Chip prodigy Da Bo leaves Japan for Chinese university

Da recently joined the University of Science and Technology of China as a chair professor at its School of Engineering Science, according to Chinese tech news outlet Deeptech.

In an interview published last week, he said he returned to China hoping to help the country narrow the gap in semiconductor technology. "If we can bring China’s semiconductor equipment, materials and components up to international standards, I believe my lifelong efforts will be worthwhile," the South China Morning Post quoted him as saying.

Before returning, Da worked at National Institute for Materials Science, Japan’s national research institute for materials science. He became the institute’s youngest independent principal investigator and was among the few Chinese researchers involved in frontline international semiconductor projects after 2022.

He also said he had built a research team at NIMS largely made up of fellow USTC graduates, with plans to eventually bring them back to China together.

Chinese semiconductor researcher Da Bo. Photo courtesy of Hitachi Global Foundation

Born in Kang county in Gansu Province, northwestern China, Da completed his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at USTC within nine years, specializing in condensed matter physics.

He joined the NIMS International Center for Young Scientists in 2015 before moving to its Center for Materials Research by Information Integration in 2016. That same year, he became the institute’s youngest tenure-track academic, achieving the promotion in one year instead of the usual three to five.

Da also won the top student award at the International Symposium on Atomic Level Characterisations for New Materials and Devices in Seoul in 2016 for research on surface excitation effects on rough surfaces.

In 2017, he received NIMS’s highest award for tenure-track researchers. His work later drew the attention of Lam Research, one of the world’s largest semiconductor equipment suppliers.

In 2022, Da proposed the slogan "materials change the world; we create materials," which was later adopted by NIMS, marking the first time a Japanese national research institution had adopted a slogan proposed by a foreign researcher.

That same year, he became the only foreign researcher invited to apply for the Hitachi Global Foundation’s 54th Kurata grants for developing a rotating crystal film-based micro-focusing X-ray source used in endoscopes.

He later led a joint project between NIMS and Lam Research focused on key materials and components used in electron-beam and etching equipment, technologies used in semiconductor manufacturing. The project was later applied to 3nm chip mass production line of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in Japan.

According to a 2023 report by People’s Daily, some members of Da’s team had already returned from Japan and were working on optoelectronics industrialization projects in Hefei, eastern China. The researchers were also involved in developing industrial platforms, including Hefei Guojing Instrument Technology, a high-tech company based in Hefei’s Grand Union of Innovation hub.

Da told Deeptech that while established researchers often transition smoothly after returning to China, young engineering talent faces greater challenges.

"This is a real challenge faced by the field," he said. "Even for a well-coordinated, complete team like ours returning to China, it requires compromises and concessions from all parties. Still, fortunately, we have a common goal to strive for."